By HFL Founder & Managing Director, Horst Lentge.

One of the world's most famous hotels has been equipped with its own power station for over 100 years, but problems through strikes and industrial disputes led to a decision in the mid-seventies to close the power station down. Powered by large marine diesel generators drawing their cooling water was expensive and inevitably the Directors decided to seek an alternative power supply.

Having made the decision to go on to the National Grid, the Savoy's Directors were advised by the DTI that a mains failure station must be installed, the reason being the security of the many VIP's in the Hotel at any time. The main criteria of the specification was that the system should be fully operational within 30 seconds of mains failure, no mean feat given the intricacy of the installation.

Tenders went out from the Savoy for quotations to undertake the conversion work. Despite the fact that HFL was a young Company, some considerable experience with installing other systems such as one in the Hyde Park Deep Garage gave Horst Lentge and Roger Barnes, HFL technical manager, the confidence to tender for the contract. Despite considerable competition from well known and established names in the industry such as Brush Switch Gear, Hawker Siddeley and GEC, HFL won the contract to convert the station.

The work to build necessary equipment took several months and eventually a date was set for commissioning. The logistics or organising the commissioning ceremony were incredible, given the fact that at any one time the Savoy Hotel could have 70 diamond and jewellery stores open, in addition to many other electrical loads including 30 guest and VIP lifts.

The date was set for 11 o'clock on a Sunday morning in 1978, the test to be supervised by the Department of the Environment. As 11 o'clock approached, both myself and my colleague Roger were somewhat apprehensive, not surprising given the fact we were surrounded by approximately thirty very senior officials from various Government departments. Due to the operating environment we had been unable to pre-test the system, so it was all or nothing. The moment of reckoning came, the lights went out, the silence was deafening.

After what felt like minutes, there was the sound of compressed air rushing through pipes followed by a sequence of clicking valves, culminating a few seconds later with the sound of a diesel engine starting. As full revolutions were achieved the lights automatically came back on, I will always savour the spontaneous applause from the assembled officials while never forgetting the relief on realising everything had performed perfectly first time.

Looking back at the events in 1978, I must confess that the Savoy Hotel experience was possibly the turning point in HFL's direction. After the Savoy, we turned our interest to marine generators. HFL serviced the equipment for many years and to my knowledge, the automatic mains failure panels supplied 22 years ago are still in operation, keeping watch on the power supply to this famous hotel.